


in the absence of light

by traiyadhvika



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Stargazing, study abroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traiyadhvika/pseuds/traiyadhvika
Summary: Like, whatareyou supposed to do when you meet your cousin's ex during study abroad on the other side of the world anyway? Awkwardly hang out? Skip class together?Kiss him?





	in the absence of light

**Author's Note:**

> waltzes into this tiny ass not-even-a-one-log-canoe ship with an armful of repressed emotions about second gens and assimilation issues and feeling lonely somewhere far from home, Hello
> 
> i cant believe i had to create the craig/kevin relationship tag? smh. then again this is largely like, pre-relationship, because i don't know where i was going with any of this, lmao.

“She’s dating Bebe now.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
Kevin hadn’t really stayed at the forefront of his mind after they’d graduated high school and everyone seemed to evaporate overnight into thin morning air. Absolutely the last person Craig would’ve thought he’d meet halfway across the globe, and like this.  
  
The queue is getting long. Soon they’ll be swallowed up in a sea of customers and clanking trolleys, and already the sound is too much for him to bear.

 

  
  
Craig’s parents hadn’t been all that into the idea of a semester abroad, mostly because it didn’t seem like a Craig thing to do, which would be a highly indisputable assessment. Like most other kids at UCB he took Spanish for that gen ed requirement, and four semesters later he remembers perhaps forty percent more swears than he did in freshman year.  
  
“Being abroad is nice,” Token had told him over Skype. “Maybe you should try it, your department must have scholarships too, don’t they?”  
  
Someone laughed in an indecipherable European language behind Token. Craig shrugged and said he’d better get back to his physics worksheets.

 

  
  
Craig hadn’t exactly picked this university because Kevin is here; he hadn’t even known where Kevin had gone off to after high school. The only one who’d really kept in touch with him was Clyde, who’d offhandedly mentioned it at some point during a text conversation before departure.

 

_didnt think youd be going off to hong kong man_  
  
_\- there wasn’t a foreign language requirement_  
  
_oh yeah they speak english over there_  
  
_\- mm_  
  
_kevin told me_  
  
_actually u know he’s at city u is that the one ur going to_  
  
_\- …_

 

Maybe this is what Tweek means by having a breakdown over nothing. He exhales.  
  
“You don’t like the city, huh.”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“I get it,” Kevin says. Someone bumps into their table, spilling tea over the shrimp dumplings, dripping sauce onto the pink plastic table covering. Craig remembers a line in the welcome brochure warning them about avoiding crowded areas. “Do you—do you want to go up to Lantau later?”  
  
“I have class.”  
  
Craig’s getting better at using chopsticks. He stabs at a bun aggressively, ignoring the dirty glances the couple sitting next to them keep throwing their way, and stuffs it into his mouth.  
  
“Not the afternoon,” Kevin continues, almost insistently, and this time Craig puts his chopsticks down to really take a look at him. College kids here don’t dress the way they do at home, but Kevin’s still looking like an American as far as he’s concerned. “At night.”  
  
“Don’t most people go in the morning?”  
  
This time Kevin smiles, awkwardly, like it’s the only way he knows how to. “You don’t seem like a morning person.”

 

  
He’s placed in classes with other international students, less so with locals, but the coursework is more or less the same. Kevin’s in his components design class, but he’s usually chatting with someone else in rapid-fire Cantonese (from his friends; Kevin’s is still bad, by his own admission, but he seems to understand more than he lets on.) They aren’t getting into group projects yet, which is great, because there’s nothing Craig hates more with a fiery passion that even he doesn’t know he has.  
  
“I bet you miss me,” Tricia tells him the one time she deigns to message him during an afternoon lull between classes. It’s gotta be what, two in the morning back home—he tells her so, and she just flips him off. “See? You’re even _lecturing_ —”  
  
“Good _night_.”  
  
The department counselor had told him (and the dozens of twentysomethings crowded into the small classroom for their pre-departure orientation) how great it would be to explore the world, a break from the normalcy they’d surely gotten used to at school after two years. It had sure sounded like he’d made a giant mistake then, and now—  
  
Out of the corner of his eye Craig sees someone waving at him from the other end of the hallway. He sighs, pockets his phone, and slides off his windowsill seat.

 

  
It’s easier tuning people out when you don’t understand what they’re saying. Craig’s already picked up a few phrases here and there, but without the requirement of language courses from his program it’s not like he’s magically going to become proficient. Still, he’s got a good enough sense of direction that he gets to avoid all awkward interactions and winds up at the Starbucks near the bus stop where he sees Kevin fiddling with his phone, a bulging backpack with a not small amount of charms attached to it next to him. It’s not Kevin’s usual backpack.  
  
He’s in the middle of wondering if sneaking up on him would be appropriate when Kevin whips his head around and spots him, a head taller than most, standing in front of the door. “Oh, hey.”  
  
Back in high school Kevin used to sit at their table when he wasn’t sitting with the rest of the geeks, and while he had always been more of Clyde’s friend he’s never bothered Craig as much as some of the other, annoying, scheming kids in school. He’s just quiet.  
  
Quiet—until someone brings up the stars.  
  
They catch the last departing cable car up after an uphill battle with the obscene amount of tourists streaming down the mountain blockading their way. The sun sinks slowly into the horizon, throwing a blanket of deep gold over the skyscrapers and clouds.  
  
Craig’s been to New York once, for their high school graduation trip—he remembers looking down at the millions of little ant-people on the grids below from atop the Empire State Building, trying to squint through the mist starting to roll in on that particularly smoggy second day. It kind of reminds him of that, and well, he can’t exactly say he’s disappointed. He likes to look at things from above.  
  
It’s when he turns to Kevin that he realizes something is wrong.  
  
“You look like you’re gonna faint.”  
  
“No shit,” Kevin rasps, already curled up in his seat, his face paper white. “I hate heights.”  
  
Craig rather unceremoniously bursts out laughing.

 

  
  
“…You okay, right.”  
  
“Yeah, it…it’s fine.”  
  
Kevin isn’t wobbling as much as before, probably because Craig’s got an arm around his and pushing more than actually walking. Big buildings loom on either side of them, high above, and the stars, however faint, are starting to peek out from behind the clouds. Considering the amount of light pollution they’re getting from one of the world’s densest cities, it’s surprisingly not as bad as he’d thought it would be.  
  
“My aunt and uncle would drive me up here sometimes during summers,” Kevin explains as they keep walking, past the souvenir stores that are just starting to shutter as the sun pulls low over the horizon. Close to the equator or no, the evening air still brings a slight chill at this time of the year. “Like. It’s just a bunch of rich people living up here now anyway.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
How could a place be both cold _and_ humid—Craig is starting to regret not bringing an actual sweater instead of the flimsy excuse for a windbreaker he has on currently. Kevin keeps talking, but his words aren’t so much entering Craig’s head as providing somewhat pleasant background white noise. It’s not until they’ve made another turn and they’re finding themselves staring down a weathered Do Not Enter sign stationed in front of a small path leading into the forest that Craig’s thoughts come back down to earth: what. He doesn’t need to know how to read Chinese to know what he wants.  
  
“We are not going in there,” he says.  
  
Kevin raises an eyebrow, letting go of his arm. “What, you scared?”  
  
“You have no idea what happened last time I walked into a spooky forest,” Craig begins, but already Kevin is pushing him past the gate like he hadn’t just dry-retched in a public bathroom twenty minutes ago. “Hey—“  
  
“I’m telling Clyde you’re a pussy if you don’t.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Craig says, but he lets himself be pushed down the path anyway. He’s still going to expect a derisive Facebook message from Clyde later, or from Jimmy if Clyde also tells him and Token, which he will. At the very least, it’s a lot less spooky here than Peru. Just…cold.  
  
Kevin’s wearing a jacket, damn him.  
  
“It’s a lot darker on this side.“  
  
There’s a determined quality to his voice Craig hadn’t heard before, something at once extremely annoying but intriguing. It’s not that he discounts earnestness in all its forms, but being dragged up here better have some sort of payoff that’s not just empty talk. He follows Kevin past the bushes, through the faint path, another gate, even more rusted than the one they’d gone through earlier…  
  
On the other side of the mountain they keep the giant statue lit throughout the night, or so Craig’s been told through the travel brochures. Kevin hadn’t been lying; he could barely see what’s in front of him, and brushes against the heavy backpack as he goes, sending both of them sprawling.  
  
“Man, what the hell did you put in there?”  
  
Kevin tries to pull him up, wobbles, then falls over again. Craig notices their movements have activated one of the lightsaber charms, which glows faintly green. “You’ll see.”  
  
Sighing, Craig takes out his phone to light the way. If Tweek were here he’d probably have already gone off running, screaming about there being guns in his backpack, he’s out for blood, whatever. Not that Craig cares, because he figures he could probably take Kevin on if that really were to happen, but maybe that sort of shit only happens at home.  
  
They’re quiet until they reach the end of the path.  
  
“What.”  
  
He almost falls—almost, because there’s a nice tree branch there to steady himself with before he falls off the edge of the cliff. The way up looks dangerously narrow, but Kevin points in another direction where the ground, though rocky, slopes up gently to a bend in the path.  
  
“We’re not in the city anymore,” Kevin replies, leading him up.  
  
Craig sighs, loud enough and annoyed enough for Kevin to hear this time, and then he looks up to see the stars.  
  
He barely hears Kevin start puttering about behind him, or the soft clinks of metal on rock. The sprinkle of light above them seems insignificant at first, but the more Craig looks the more seem to appear—to his right, something brighter than the others stands out.  
  
“You know some people worship the BIg Dipper as a god?”  
  
“Let me see,” Craig says, completely unfazed by the fact that there’s already a telescope set up behind him. Of course. It’s not a particularly expensive setup, hampered by the fact that it’s just _them_ , but…  
  
“Remember the planetarium back home?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
He can see it clearer now, the tail of Ursa Major, and Polaris in a line above, fainter than he’s used to seeing. Craig moves the scope a little to the left, spying something else there. “That’s Arcturus.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
They descend into a routine, switching places as Kevin quietly points out different names for the constellations Craig’s been familiar with for twenty years—the twenty-eight mansions, the creatures on the moon, how the ancient Chinese probably met aliens and mistook them for gods. Craig’s not sure he understands even half of what’s coming out of Kevin’s mouth, but—it’s sort of nice, in a way, having someone else here who’s also content to look at the stars. Someone in this foreign place that’s not so foreign, to him.  
  
Something drops from the sky—he isn’t fast enough to catch it. Meteor season isn’t here yet, though the steady stream of late-night flights seemingly coming in from every country in the world has never ceased. Maybe it’s the moon-rabbit dropping his pestle. Maybe it’s little green men.  
  
“Aren’t you cold?” Kevin interrupts his thoughts, and Craig could feel his body heat on his, so close together are they standing. “Do you—”  
  
“I don’t want your jacket.”  
  
“…That um, wasn’t what I was gonna say.“  
  
“…”  
  
“You wouldn’t fit anyway,” Kevin supplies quickly, ostensibly helpful…but. _But_. “I mean, if you really want to—”  
  
“Look.” Craig pulls away from the telescope to look, really look at him. It’s hard to in the absence of any light other than the stars, but it’s not hard to hear the hesitation in his voice. “You like guys too, right.”  
  
“What d—”  
  
_This is such a weird fucking city,_ is Craig’s last thought before he pulls Kevin in, bumping against his nose slightly before finding just exactly where their lips meet. Kevin’s wearing chapstick, still fairly minty, something that he’d probably applied in the bathroom an hour or an eternity ago. At least he hadn’t really puked back there. The thought leads him to pull away suddenly, as does the realization that Kevin had indeed been kissing back.  
  
“Oh,” Kevin says. And then, quietly, “Wow, I didn’t think this was going to work.”  
  
“You’re transparent,” Craig says, but then again, so is he, probably. He’s still not quite sure what to feel except cold and the fact that Kevin’s jacket sleeve seems to be a better place to be, and just because they’d just mashed their faces together doesn’t mean he isn’t suddenly feeling super fucking conscious and Kevin isn’t looking at him all funny and red-faced as his phone screen lights up. “Ignore it.”  
  
“Craig—”  
  
The username on the screen is Clyde’s; Craig frowns and pulls Kevin’s hand close to look at the message. “ _Scoring some dick tonight?_ ”  
  
“Oh my god,” Kevin groans, dragging his now free hands down his face. “I’m going to kill him.”  
  
“Don’t,” Craig says. “I’ll do it.”

 

  
By the time they reached the sign again the roads are deserted and the effects of coffee have worn off for both of them. Kevin is tense—he almost yelps when Craig pokes him, biting back some Cantonese swear as he rounds on him and blinks rapidly like some demented owl. “D-don’t do that.”  
  
“Okay.” And then, “Seriously, stop blinking. You’re kinda freaking me out.”  
  
“I just.” He inhales, and somewhere far off a dog barks once, then quiets. “I thought maybe you’d like it better here if you saw something other than the city.”  
  
There’s a slight mist forming over the road. The cable cars are down, so they probably would have to walk all the way back down to catch a taxi. Craig sighs. More trouble, but. For what it’s worth… “You really didn’t think this through, did you.”  
  
“Not really, yeah.”  
  
“…Thanks, anyway.”  
  
He doesn’t wait for Kevin to protest, or for the fog to lift. It doesn’t matter that Kevin’s fingers aren’t as warm as Craig had thought they would be; the walk down the long road would be another feat in and of itself, and he could see himself skipping all of tomorrow’s classes just from how exhausted this would leave them.  
  
But right now they’re looking at the city from above, thousands of sparkling lights littering constellations of street-lamps and neon signs drawn from the ground. It’s not the vast expansive sky above them, but it’s here and close as Kevin’s shoulder bumping against his arm, and for now, it’ll do.


End file.
